


it's not helping me

by bruised_fruit



Series: unhealed and rotting [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, interwoven hurt and comfort, self injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2020-06-27 14:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19792603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bruised_fruit/pseuds/bruised_fruit
Summary: She doesn’t deserve this, she tells him, and he kisses her more.





	it's not helping me

**Author's Note:**

> repost with minor edits

He says her name, not lovingly, but he says it, and that’s enough. He’s in pain, but it will all be okay, please, if he will just be _himself_ and trust her to see this through, because he knows she’s always just wanted it to stop.

She watches him through the bubble of the shield. She protects him. Something inside of her may be weeping, but she feels alive again. He’s him again, and they’re going to _win._

\--

On the ship, on his ship, again, and with him again. And if all she has is this—if all she has is putting an end to the Hunger, once and for all, and the knowledge that he will tolerate her through it—then that would be enough.

\--

They save the world. They all have resentments, certainly. But they did it, and he says her name again, so soft and loving and gentle it lodges itself in her chest and heals ten, no twenty, years of heartbreak. Nothing had felt right between them since cycle 92. He hugs her, holds her for hours. She missed him being solid and sweet and so impossibly intentional in everything. 

She says his name, the name he fought for, the name so few call him. His first name, but also his title, and all the pet names she held in for a decade. It was only right. She doesn’t deserve this, she tells him, and he kisses her more.

\-- 

They’re exhausted, disgustingly sweaty, and so out of practice, fumbling against each other in a half-remembered dance, and he shouts _it’s over!_ and laughs, near-hysterical, and he shouts _why, Lucretia?!_ and sobs like it’s all he has, and he insists _it’s fine, just touch me baby,_ and _let me touch you, please please, I missed this._

They fuck, and it’s all _are you sure, how could you possibly want this_ , and _oh god, angel, I missed you so much._

The next morning, she has to break the door of the bathroom to get to him.

He’s covered in blood. She tells him he’s stronger than this, and he shrieks that he was never strong, if he was strong, then why didn’t she _tell_ him? And he’s sobbing, far harder than when he had to look at her during that hellish decade, more than the first few visits to the boys, certainly more than after the visit from Barry, somehow more than during the century, that first night he told her how lost and scared he was, how much he’d been hurting since even before the mission. He gets his blood on her. 

“You’re better than me, better than _this,_ " she says, like this is a matter of worse or of better, like being made of up of scar says anything about goodness, like there’s anything she could say that might help him.

He vomits.

\-- 

He’s on her couch, wrapped in a blanket. She had bathed him, she had watched him cry and brought him water.

“Fuck,” he says.

“It’s okay,” she whispers.

“I want to stay,” he tells her, and she stares at him, her shoulders tense.

“I want you-- I want that, too. I want you healthy, though.”

She falls silent, and he lays down, resting his head in her lap. “Been over a century, for me.”

“A few days,” she says, her voice low. “I wanted to when they left for Wonderland, though. So fucking badly.”

He rolls more fully onto his back, and she puts a hand on his stomach, soft but so solid. It strikes him that they've never really talked about this at length. 

“I should have done something for you, Lucy.”

She shakes her head.

“I tried to be more careful. I didn’t want to die and-- and ruin everything. And leave you alone... And I could tell you didn’t like it.” Lucretia pauses. “You never did.”

“I stopped because of someone,” he says slowly.

“But he died.” 

Davenport hums. “You don’t know me very well.”

“I mean, I-- I do. I just don’t understand,” she says, quiet.

“That’s fair.” She scrunches up her hand on his stomach at his words, the thick fabric of his sweater gathering under her fingers. “But it’s just like making my shitty dead parents proud. Proving myself to the IPRE even when it was long gone.”

“Yeah,” she says.

“So much _stupid_ stuff mattered to me. Somehow… not showing my partner that I’m trustworthy,” he says, much gentler than before, but there’s bitterness in his tone. Something catches in her throat. 

Lucretia waits a few moments before speaking again. “It wasn’t a failing on your part.”

“How could you say that?” 

She splays her long fingers out on his stomach, frowning.

“I refuse to humor this, Drew. I know what kind of man-- what kind of _captain_ you are. You wouldn’t have forced them into anything." 

“I guess...” He sounds somewhere else, they both can hear it. “But we used to touch each other so lovelessly, those last couple years especially, but the whole decade before, too. I knew something was wrong. I was scared. I wasn’t enough for you.” 

“I won’t humor this,” she says again.

“Oh, fuck you,” he says, not unkindly. “Of all people...” Lucretia makes a strained noise, and he shifts against her. “Can’t you let me have feelings, let me express them?” 

He feels her take a deep breath. He feels guilty. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t prepare for this at all, Andrew.” Her words wash over him in an unpleasant way. She wanted him back, but wouldn't let herself think about it? It does sound like her, and he cringes at that on the inside. 

“It makes me feel like your idiot servant again,” he tells her, fighting to keep his tone even. He’s not trying to guilt her, not trying to hungrily pick at all the sore spots she’ll let him see.

“That’s valid,” she whispers, and Davenport hates that.

“It makes me feel like I deserved it. Like you wanted it that way...” He’s not getting a rise out of her, but he doesn’t want that, not really. He makes a frustrated noise. “Can we fuck again?”

Lucretia laughs, humorless. 

“Whatever you want,” she says, and she means it.

There’s a pause, then Davenport shifts closer. “God,” he mutters. “This is ridiculous.”

She pulls him into her lap, and he lets her--he wants her, after all. “Missed your voice,” she breathes into his neck.

“Same,” he says unthinkingly, but he relishes the way she tenses at that. (He’s a monster. She is, too, isn’t she? They made each other this way...)

But he leans into her, his upper back against her soft chest, her arms wrapping around him.

“We-- we shouldn’t make love again,” she whispers, and he nearly laughs this time. Without hesitation, he twists his torso, tilts his head up, catches her mouth in a kiss.

They pull apart. “One more time, and I’ll go,” he says.

Their bodies are flush to each other, and she shudders when he presses closer still. 

“Or I could stay?”

Lucretia makes an odd noise. “Not if you’re hurting yourself. Not with stress, and guilt, and anger-- I know you’re angry, there’s nothing wrong with it, you’re _allowed--_ ”

“Stop,” he says, and she falls silent. “Listen, Lucretia. What if you could just pretend it’s not there? That you don’t care about it, it would be so much easier...” Her palms run over him. He doesn’t meet her eyes. 

“I-- I don’t want a continuation of the way things got at the end of the century.”

“You could have hurt me. Really hurt me, and I would have still...”

“Please, Drew.” She did hurt him, she wants to say. It was so bad, all of it. He won't let her say that. (Neither of them can handle that now, as much as he's willfully provoking her.)

“I wanna belong to you, I want you to-- to use me. There’s no other way to-- I just wanna be yours.” Lucretia makes a strained noise, she wants to push him away, and she knows he knows it. He goes on, “What else could I be, could I do?”

“Anything,” she says, her voice unsteady. 

“Something stupid, something fun,” he says, “if I can’t be here.”

She’s quiet.

“What?” Davenport asks, and Lucretia frowns, though he can’t see it.

“I do want you here...”

\-- 

“You know I’ll never stop loving you, baby,” Davenport breathes.

He hears a little intake of breath, quiet and shallow, and she runs her hands over him like she’s trying to memorize him, like this will be the last time.

\-- 

This time, he has the panic attack in front of her. She holds him down, and he cries against her chest when he’s done, wrapped tightly in her arms.

\-- 

Davenport has thrown up too many times to keep track of.

“I want you,” he rasps.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Lucretia says slowly, and soon she’s crying too. She’s quiet about it, but her tears streak her face, and she doesn’t move away when he rests a hand on her leg.

She cleans him up with Prestidigitation, kisses his face, his neck, his chest. 

“I’ll get you water,” she says, and he grumbles something about getting it himself, but he lets her leave.

\--

“I’m killing you,” she says, and her voice cracks. He looks over at her in the dark, and she’s looking back. She’s always been so cognizant of his darkvision.

Lucretia’s face is open, painted with emotion. Davenport inches closer to her, his throat dry. “You’re so dramatic,” he says, and she makes a little huffy noise that could have been meant to be a laugh.

“Take me seriously.” Her words are quiet.

“I always do,” he says, and he sees her close her eyes, tilt her head away slightly. “If it was so bad, I would have left by now.” 

Lucretia doesn’t seem to like that. “But it was so much worse, the past decade. And you couldn’t leave, I was keeping you; you were so dependent on me Drew, don’t you--”

“I’m not afraid,” he says flatly. “I don’t need-- don’t need you like I did then. I want to be here.”

She takes a deep, shuttering breath.

 _“Should_ you be here, though?” Davenport coughs, places a hand on her stomach, relishes the way her body reacts to him. “Should you want me?” Lucretia asks, more insistent.

“Wanna be with you,” he breathes. _“Lucy--”_ He palms at her chest, and she curses quietly _,_ curving her back to press into him.

Her legs fall open, and she pulls him closer. “We have to talk about his later,” she says, “but for now--”

“Stop feeling bad, honey,” he says, and Lucretia chuckles, though the noise turns to a gasp as he slides against her. “You think I want you to suffer?” he asks her in a strained voice.

She shakes her head, her eyes squeezed shut, but neither of them feel satisfied with that.

\-- 

In the shower, he curls around her while she sits on the floor. He’s crying as quietly as possible, and she’s got her arms around his middle, washcloth loose in her grip. “I’m sorry,” he says, whimpery and small, and she holds his shaking body as the water runs over them.

“You shouldn’t be doing this alone,” she tells him, and he sobs. His arms wrap tighter around her.

“Shouldn’t be doing this,” he echoes weakly, his face in the wet cloud of her hair.

“It’s okay, Andrew,” Lucretia says into his chest. The thick, ancient scar stretched across his sternum is pressed against her forehead, familiar and oddly comforting. She’s grateful that he can’t see her face.

\-- 

“You need to leave,” she tells him.

“Then what will become of you?” he asks, and she frowns.

“That shouldn’t matter to you.”

Davenport nearly drops his glass, and he spills some of his water on the table. He swears.

“It’s fine,” Lucretia says, leaning toward him and holding out a napkin.

He takes it, puts the cup down, and wipes up the water, not looking at her. “Of course it should matter, Lucretia. _You_ matter to me, you matter so much.”

“I have… less to work through.”

“How can you say that?!” he spits out, and he huffs at her expression. It's very _her,_ all of this, he tells himself. 

“You shouldn’t-- you don’t need to be worried about me!” Then, more quietly, like she’s embarrassed, or regretful: “You’re staying for my sake? For my _safety?_ How _broken_ do you think I am?”

Davenport grits his teeth. “Look what you did, Lucretia.” She shrinks slightly, and he ignores it. “How could you have done that, if you were okay? If I hadn’t missed so much, fuck, it was all... cowardice, really. I was afraid, I neglected to take care of you--” 

“I just did what I thought was right,” she says, cutting him off. “It had nothing to do with--"

“It had everything to do with me! And look at you now,” he says, his voice shaking. “Look at you, Lucy, I could leave and come back to-- to--"

“You think I’m going to kill myself.” The words hang in the air. 

“Or let yourself die,” Davenport says quietly, trying to mask all the fear and bitterness behind his concern. “I know you...” 

Lucretia stands abruptly and takes his glass to the sink. 

“You do, don’t you?” he hears her say quietly. “But whenever you let yourself really think about me, that’s what makes you fall apart. Right?”

He snorts, even as his chest seizes up. There's no way to continue this conversation well, and by now, he's past accepting it. “I’ve never seen you deflect so transparently.”

There’s a pause before she sighs and turns to him. “You’re not obligated to keep me safe. That shouldn’t be what keeps you here.”

“It isn’t, you know that,” Davenport says. A part of him worries that she doesn't somehow. It aches, it wants to really fight her, to prove that his love is wholesome and legitimate. 

Lucretia bites her lip. “We can still love each other, even if we have to be apart for a while,” she says.

“We were apart for so long,” he says, almost whiny. She groans, walking to the doorway, and he follows her into the living room.

“That’s part of it, right?” He climbs onto the couch, and she pulls a pillow onto her lap. Chews her lip. She meets his eyes, then looks to her lap.

“We need to get used to each other again,” she whispers.

“I hate that,” he says, and she laughs a little.

“I don’t want you to go,” she breathes. “Especially if-- if you realize what a monster I am while you’re away, and you never come back.” She clutches the pillow closer, her palms pressing down in an achingly familiar motion. 

“Lucy,” Davenport starts, but everything he says is always insufficient. So instead, he just says, “You’re gonna make me cry again,” and she laughs for real this time.

“Fuck, I love you, Drew. I really am sorry...” The sound of her voice scrapes at him, and the feeling gets worse as Lucretia takes in a shuddering breath, squeezes the pillow. “Imagine... if we had done it together.”

“I can’t,” he says, “or I can, but we would have destroyed this plane in the process.”

She smiles, small and sad. “Yeah, you’re right...”

“I think I would have done it, though,” Davenport says quietly. “Happily.” 

She blinks and looks away. She puts the pillow to the side. “Tomorrow,” she says, and he nods.

He climbs into her lap, and Lucretia sobs, a little gasping noise, but louder, so much more exposed than any of the times she’s let him see her crying in the past few days. “How could you want me?” she asks, and he presses his mouth to hers in answer.

\--

He sleeps soundly that night, and that’s enough evidence for the both of them. Davenport wakes before her, and she barges into the bathroom while he’s showering, laughing once she sees he’s safe. He grumbles under his breath when he gets out, wrapping a towel around himself, but when she drops to her knees and kisses him, gentle and purposeful, it quite literally takes his breath away. 

Over breakfast, Davenport says casually, “I have a few ideas of what I can do, but what about you?”

Lucretia dumps what must be half a cup of walnuts into her oatmeal. “Same as usual,” she tells him, and there’s a defensive edge to her tone, so he doesn’t push it.

He hums. “And I can visit, when I really need you?”

“Yes,” she says slowly, stirring her oatmeal. “But we can’t do this again.”

“I know,” he says. Lucretia watches him eat before taking a bite of her breakfast. It’s just like during the decade. 

“We used to do this, do you remember?”

Davenport nods. “You usually didn’t eat, though.”

She laughs dryly, taking a sip of her coffee. He narrows his eyes at her slightly, and she ignores it.

“Are you gonna eat while I’m gone?” he asks. 

“Yes,” she lies. 

“You never... bothered pretending to be okay in front of me, unless I was really distressed. Can I trust you to be honest with Magnus? Or Lup?”

Lucretia shrugs, and he sighs. 

“See, even _you_ don’t want me to leave.”

“That’s not what’s happening here,” she says quietly. 

“I’ll be thinking about you the whole time,” Davenport tells her, and she frowns. He knew she would, but the frown brings a surge of unhappiness anyway, and he wants to push it back down, savor what little genuineness she'll give him while they're together. 

“I know, dear...” He watches her take a breath. “All the more reason— we both need time apart, don’t you think?”

“You already gotten me to agree to leave,” he says. “Don’t make me pretend I’m happy about it, the fact that I need to.”

“It doesn’t make you weak,” she says emphatically.

Davenport takes a breath. Attempts lightheartedness when he says, “You really do know me better than I know myself.”

“Oh come on,” she says. “Don’t be stupid about this, please...”

She picks a walnut out of her oatmeal with intense concentration.

“Is that what this is?” he asks quietly. 

“No,” Lucretia says, a hint of exasperation to her tone, and he knows that she resents it. “I just-- we need time. I can’t take and take your pain. Any of this, really... it’s enough to feel it alone...” She sets her jaw. “And you know I’m… I can’t handle certain things. I’m not strong enough.” Davenport almost bristles at her words, but he won’t fight her on that, not now.

“So you’re never going to talk to Taako again? What about Barry and Lup? I’m sure they’re feeling something about all this,” he says hotly. Her face darkens slightly. 

“Maybe...” Lucretia says, then stops. 

“What?” he asks.

“It was stupid,” she says. “I thought, when things are better with you, you’d be like a buffer.” She laughs, short and nervous. “It sounds fucking horrible to say aloud. I’m sorry for even wanting it...”

He swallows. “It makes sense,” he says. “But honestly, I can’t be with them right now. It might, uh, be a while.”

“See, you can say that!”

“It was hard to come to that conclusion, too, Lucretia,” Davenport says flatly. “Just thinking about Taako trying to get me to bond over hating you or something. Shit...”

She drinks the rest of her coffee in one go, and he watches. “He wouldn’t,” she says.

“I think he would,” Davenport says, meeting her eyes. “In a few months, maybe he’ll, I don't know, contextualize. Or in a few months, he might look to me for how to treat you.”

Lucretia looks uneasy. “You shouldn’t... push down how you feel, Drew.” 

He snorts at that, plays with his oatmeal. “I’d like to think that I can manage how I act a little better than him. And in a few months, I mean... this should be at least a little better. Right?”

She avoids his eyes this time. “That would be nice,” she says carefully.

“But I’ll get to see you?”

She looks ill. She stares into her empty mug, and he takes a bite of cold oatmeal.

“If you want... If you feel ready for that, when the time comes, and it doesn’t feel so raw.”

\-- 

Lucretia combs his hair on the couch late morning. They’re waiting to hear back from her contacts.

“I’m not gonna do this while I’m away,” he tells her, and she laughs a little.

“It was, uh, good, while it lasted, I’ll admit that.” 

He never thought much about his hair during the century, just cleanliness. She’d trained him into shaping his appearance during the decade. He has mixed feelings about it, when he lets himself think about it. “I’m gonna grow out my beard, too, Lucretia,” he says, and she laughs.

“I’m excited to see it, then,” she says, putting the comb down. 

He turns to smile at her, then thinks better of it. 

“Don’t you wanna see the world, too?”

Davenport watches her stand from the couch. She glances at him.

“I’ve seen a lot of it. I’m excited for you, though.” She doesn’t sound particularly excited, but he doesn’t point that out. Something inside of him hurts. It usually does; it was hurting during his decade of silence, too. 

He searches for something to say. “Can… can you help me get provisions?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Lucretia sits on the floor like she's forgotten why she stood to begin with, her back against the couch, and tilts her head back.

“Look at you,” she says, her voice hushed, and he shifts. Reaches for her hand. 

She gives it to him. “I love you, Lucy,” he tells her.

“I won’t do anything bad again,” she says back. She kisses his fingers, her eyes closed. He swallows. If only he hadn’t been so lacking. If only he’d done, or not done, whatever it was that had kept her from trusting him, from letting him fix things. If only he’d been capable of fixing. He’s not, he’s never been.

There’s something stuck in his throat.

“I’m gonna be sick again,” he says, and she jerks to look at him, her grip on his hand tightening all sudden.

“I’ll get the trash can and some water. It’s okay, sweetheart.” She stands, unsteady, and he feels it, really feels it, the vulnerability and relative newness of her 54-year-old body driving home the aches and fears and panic, sheer overwhelming panic wedged deep in him. 

“W-Wait,” he says, sharper than he means to, and she’s almost at the doorway, but stops to face him. “Please-- don’t, I need you here.”

“I’ll be right back, Andrew,” she says, and there’s the Director’s gravitas, the cloak she wears over herself. He hates it. 

He’s dizzy, but he doesn’t get down from the couch. He waits, frozen, until she returns. There’s a blanket from her bed, too, and she wraps it overs him, looking like she’ll wrap her arms around him, too.

“Please,” he says, and she looks as sick as he feels. 

“It’ll be okay,” she says shakily. “Trust me?”

Davenport takes the cup from her. The water is cold, and a new thought registers. Her face is so clear, no static to it. Something about her was obscured during the decade. “It all aches so much, Lucy,” he says, and he feels selfish, because her face breaks into two, or three.

“We’ll make it okay,” she whispers. “We’ll try…” She shakes, and he leans into her. “This is the right thing to do.” He doesn't know who she's saying it for. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from aimee mann's "true believer." here's the whole stanza/verse:  
> really, when you come into the room  
> it's not helping me, seeing you now  
> it's not easy, in this phosphorescent gloom  
> telling waking dreams apart anyhow


End file.
